Lassie Suddenly Burst Out Laughing – Collections of the OP Pohjola Art Foundation

On the first of May, an exhibition presenting the OP Pohjola Art Foundation Collection will open at Söderlångvik Museum. The show takes its name from a charming miniature sculpture titled Lassie Suddenly Burst OutLaughing (1982) by the artist Erkki Mykrä.

Occupying five rooms on the ground floor of the museum, the exhibition encompasses paintings, sculptures and prints by prominent Finnish artists. The earliest work included is Unto Koistinen’s painting Hannu from 1957, the most recent is Heimo Suntio’s installation The Draughtsman from 2016. The exhibition features altogether about 60 works within that span of time, most of them dating from the 1980s and 1990s.

The exhibition brings together a carefully curated selection of works from the OP Pohjola collection that are compelling both artistically and in terms of their content. The installation of the show is designed to reflect the character and proportions of the museum galleries. The spacious drawing room is devoted to abstract art, which has played a significant role in Finnish modernism, with famous names including Matti Kujasalo, Juhana Blomstedt, Mari Rantanen and Kain Tapper. The large dining room presents a selection of larger artworks, including Kaj Stenvall’s early depiction of workers Dismissal, Esko Tirronen’s In the Wind, Raimo Aarras’s luminous Beach, Paul Osipow’s Ruins, Grez sur Loing, and Ann Sundholm’s exuberant print series on animal patterning. The atmosphere in the smaller rooms is more intimate, with works by Marjukka Paunila, Katarina Reuter, Markku Keränen and Marjatta Hanhijoki, among others. Sculptures have also been placed in each room, by artists including Minna Tuominen, Miina Äkkijyrkkä, Laila Pullinen, Kari Huhtamo and Pauno Pohjolainen.

The OP Pohjola Art Foundation and the Amos Anderson Foundation share close ties, and both are members, with their respective collections, of the Association of Finnish Fine Arts Foundations. The exhibition at Söderlångvik Museum offers the public an opportunity to admire art that is rarely shown in public, particularly on such a generous scale. In curating the exhibition, one could not help but admire how distinguished and wide-ranging the OP Pohjola Art Foundation Collection is, reflecting the history of Finnish art in all its regional and stylistic richness.

The OP Pohjola Art Foundation, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, is a non-profit foundation whose mission is to promote music and the visual arts. Its collection comprises approximately 1,500 works of art, and it also manages a further 1,500 works belonging to the OP Pohjola Group, spanning art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The Foundation also operates a public art gallery located in the OP Vallila office building, which hosts a new exhibition each year.

Alongside the exhibition, a selection of Finnish art from the first half of the twentieth century, drawn from the collections of the Amos Anderson Foundation, is on display in the museum’s remaining rooms.